count the stars and you will know
by thefudge is grumpy
Summary: Bonnie runs into Klaus during one of her travels. It goes as well as you might expect. 5 years after 8x16. (two-parter)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: sometimes i wonder if i'm alive. JUST KIDDING. "thefudge" is really tired and grumpy and needs to stop writing monumentally long fics at 4 AM in the morning. Oh, i should mention, this is gonna be another duology (two-parter) like my bonkai project, because i have become a duologist, apparently. Basically, I wanted to explore Bonnie and Klaus grieving their loved ones in a post-TVD scenario because their storylines are actually quite interesting parallels beyond canon. Like come on, Bonnie mourning Enzo, Klaus mourning Cami, them mourning together? Anyone?_

 _Some things to keep in mind: this, as usual, turns weird. Bonnie and Klaus aren't always likable. Grief is a strange, ugly process._

 _p.s. **Anastasia-G** is very concerned about my sleeping patterns, so go read her fics and read this one too to support out life-threatening literary endeavors._

 _p.p.s. I know next to nothing about Machu Picchu, so don't base your future holiday on this, just sayin'. I make stuff up (that also goes for any TO-related stuff. I don't really watch that show, sorry)_

 _Enjoy!_

* * *

i.

Grief is a mountain that you are supposed to scale on your own, rock by solitary rock. You may stop on the way to catch your breath and watch the world unfold below, but if you meet a fellow traveler, you're supposed to nod and move on. You must not, under any circumstances, say hello.

* * *

She catches the back of his head; the shaggy, rebellious curls of a captive lion. Recognition doesn't hit her right away; she has to peel back layers of herself to remember that, once upon a time, she used to know someone by the name of Klaus Mikaelson.

What the hell is _he_ doing here in Machu Picchu of all places?

But no - _no way_.

It can't really be him. She can't associate touristy sites with a blood-thirsty hybrid. There are loud, happy families frolicking around them, for god's sake.

Bonnie swivels her heavy rucksack, bent on ignoring this insolent Klaus double, whoever he may be.

But in her rush to get away, she accidentally kicks a stone with her new hiking shoes (she's been trying to break them in, but it's more likely the other way around) and when he turns his head to find the source of the noise, it's too late. He's seen her.

She recognizes him all right. Only _he_ could look both shocked and displeased in the same breath. As if the world were a constant source of irritation. His mulish mouth is set in a thin line, and his chin is strung out, ready to bite. Classic Klaus.

"Well, this is a surprise," he drawls, straightening himself.

And she notices he's wearing proper hiking gear in faded camouflage green. It doesn't fit badly on him, but he looks quite unlike himself. Parochial and quaint, like a housebroken feline. She would laugh, maybe, but she's in no mood for his brand of asshole.

"Hello, Klaus," she mutters. "I'm sure you're here for a supernatural artifact that involves some kind of human sacrifice, so…I'm going to steer clear."

He raises a condescending eyebrow. "The Andean tribes were more inclined towards animal sacrifice."

Bonnie bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from saying something mean.

Nope, here she goes. "Did you read that in the tourist handbook?"

Klaus looks beyond her at the patch of verdant green that ends, quite, suddenly in rough stone. "…yes."

Her look of surprise is hardly subtle. "Really."

This doesn't sound like the old cocky immortal.

"Well," he shrugs, "I never found these people _that_ compelling to visit when they were alive."

Bonnie thinks about the fact that this man, standing before her, renders her contemporary with the age of the Inca and beyond. It is, for a moment, completely disturbing. No one should be this old and look this young. She's known vampires all her life, but he sticks out like a sore thumb.

"So why visit now?" she asks, like a fool. She should really just say "bye, then" and move along, but there's something really pathetic about the all-menacing hybrid on a tourist trail in Machu Picchu, and she can't help poking the bear one last time.

He smiles, out of the blue, like a sphinx in the desert. A twisted, half-moon parody of a smile.

"It was one of Camille's destinations."

* * *

Bonnie takes the smooth piece of paper from his hand.

It bears no wrinkle or crease, proving that he keeps it among his most valuable possessions.

She surveys it with what seems to be an idle, disinterested eye, but she is _curious_ , against her better judgment.

It documents Camille O'Connell's "travel goals". All the places she wanted to see and never got a chance to. All the cities and sites she wanted to explore.

"Well, she was rather whimsical," Klaus muses in a tight voice. "There's nothing there that doesn't belong in a rote Michelin guide."

Bonnie's finger traces the most wonderful cliché of all, _Paris_.

They're sitting in one of the wooden shacks that stands for a bar-stop along the tourist trail. Their lagers of beer lie partially abandoned. It's so quaint, having beer with Klaus Mikaelson. He offered to pay anyway. And suppose she was willing to hear more about this mysterious Camille.

It shocks her that Klaus briefly fell in love with a mortal. His infatuation with Caroline was only skin-deep and rather incidental. She remembers it like a game without stakes. But _this_ –this sounds serious and gut-wrenching. He can't bring himself to talk about Camille directly; he alludes to her in mock-remarks or unfinished sentences. Like shielding your eyes from the painful glare of the sun.

She doesn't know what to say to him – to this stranger, really. Because as much history as they share, she's never seen this part of him, never thought him capable.

The only thing she can say is, "Enzo and I went to Paris. I didn't know it would be our only trip together in this life."

Klaus rests his chin in the heel of his hand. "I thought I had more than _this_ life. Surely, you did too. Lorenzo was a vampire, wasn't he?"

Bonnie nods and ducks her head almost bashfully.

"Are you afraid I'll call you a hypocrite?" he asks with a hint of the old irony.

"You just did," she says, reaching for her warm lager.

"I suppose you were always bound to join our lot."

Bonnie stares at the amber liquid, almost transparent in the green light. Everything here has a patina of arborous green. It's as if nature swallowed whole civilizations just to play a trick of light in her glass.

"Why's that?"

He shrugs. "You seemed to like damaged things."

.

* * *

It was rumored at one time that this was the site of the Lost City of Gold, that Machu Picchu was _El Dorado_. That every slab of granite was bedecked in a fine sheen of gold that would smudge your fingers upon contact. That it was a gleaming jewel under the open sky. That men became proud of their treasure and wanted to show it to the world. That the gods got angry and blew away the gold, so that when strangers arrived to see their marvel, there was only stone.

To punish them for thinking that anything truly belongs to you.

.

* * *

"So," he sighs, because even _he_ feels some strain after climbing three hundred steps in a row. Bonnie is drenched in her own sweat, can't even blink without wincing, but she feels a warm glow in the middle of her forehead. There is relief in blinding pain.

Pushing on despite the discomfort is a reward in its own way.

"That is the lesson I was supposed to grasp, apparently."

She nods grimly, too exhausted to speak. She pulls out the water bottle. It's warm and sticky like the beer she drank, but it satisfies her in a way. All of these efforts are continuous, they share the same flavor. You just keep going in the same fashion.

When her throat is less parched, she chances a glance at him. "Did it –I don't know- _humble_ you?"

Klaus smirks in the fashion of tricksters and scoundrels and ne'er-do-wells, but the impishness, the solid charm of his past decadence is now chipped away, is now a pale copy.

"Hardly."

* * *

" _The lesson, as far as I can tell, is that immortality is a well-crafted lie. There is no such thing, really. Either everything lives forever, or nothing does. Camille could not live forever. Therefore, nothing can."_

* * *

"I don't find that grief ennobles us in any way," he remarks as they stand on the promontory facing the wide valley. She likes how nature has stubbornly cracked through the granite, and thick vines kiss between minerals.

Bonnie bites her cracked lips. "Maybe not…but Enzo expects me to be on my best behavior. He expects me to do great things."

Klaus points below, where the tourists walk like busy ants. "Look at the poor fools, swarming with purpose. If one of them could drop dead right now and Lorenzo were returned to you, what would you do?"

Bonnie opens her mouth to deny his claim, to draw the line she would never cross.

Her lips stay parted, but the words never come.

Klaus smiles. "I thought so."

* * *

The selfishness startles her, the amoral pit in the valve of her heart. Everyone has one, a dark chamber where one keeps something in chains.

The question becomes urgent when one decides to break the chains.

Everyone knows, Bonnie Bennett has never shrunk from the unorthodox. But what will she shrink from?

"How many would you kill to get Camille back?" she asks, stretching her knee.

"Count the stars and you will know," he replies with a wry movement of his eyebrows, inviting her to look above, where the afternoon sky is already bruised red.

* * *

"You know she'd never forgive you if you spilled blood in her name."

She wonders why she bothers to tell him this; Klaus will do what he will.

Except, there is nothing he _can_ do. He told her he's run out of supernatural backdoors. And she has exhausted all her outposts with Enzo. There is only hope now, hope that they will be reunited in the beyond.

It's hard, but it's also _easy_. She has run out of options, which means she is not tempted to reach for the dark arts of the soul. She can still trick herself into thinking she would make the right choice.

"Yes," he replies tightly, "but I do not seek forgiveness. I seek her."

 _I seek her._

 _I seek her._

 _I seek her._

What will he find in her? What will she find in Enzo?

Is there an end-point, a cul-de-sac to love? Will she ever feel she's had enough?

She doesn't look where she's going, her foot misses a step. She stumbles and almost loses her bearings.

She feels his sharp fingers digging in the flesh of her arm, pulling her up with brute, indelicate force.

"Watch your step."

She could have trundled down this infinite slope of earth-bound stairs and split her head open. She could've died a ridiculous death in Machu Picchu.

She looks up at him with resentment. _Maybe you should've let me._

* * *

The next day, the climb is easier and she makes it to a higher promontory. Five hundred stairs, in all. The clouds look different from up here; not like clouds, but like air beaten into submission. You can see the treacherous fluff, their stratagem of substance.

She has not harbored suicidal thoughts in a long time. She is, to simplify matters, a warrior, and her ancestors have left her with this fearless inheritance. Never give up.

Most pop-psychology books and self-help manuals have rendered this saying moot, have turned it into sawdust. _Never give up! Stay on top of your game! The race is on!_

But there is something arcane and sibylline about never ceasing. There is something belonging-to-women about a slow and steady trek across the monuments of men.

Klaus is sitting at the bar-stop, nursing a beer.

She plops down in the seat in front of him, rucksack sagging with her belongings.

"I'm dead," she heaves, leaning her head against the hollow wood. It's a good kind of tired.

Klaus raises an eyebrow. "Why are you dragging your luggage with you?"

She wipes away the sweat from her face. "I'm not staying at a hotel. I'm sleeping in the tent camp."

It's funny, this is the first time he looks like his old self because he is slightly scandalized at the idea. "On the _ground_."

"I have a sleeping bag, but yeah."

"Gods, I truly don't miss sleeping on the ground," he says with a distant, withering stare.

"No one's asking you to."

* * *

He walks with her to the tent camp because he's curious. It's packed with young stragglers, old hippies, and starry-eyed newlyweds who feel this is the height of romance.

There is a campfire and everything. They even have marshmallows.

Bonnie finds a spot next to a raspberry bush and sits down with her legs crossed. Klaus stands with arms folded, watching the fire.

The hippies start singing campfire songs. Someone cranks up _Bohemian Rhapsody_ in a drunken slur.

Bonnie looks up at him. "Sorry, this isn't really your scene."

Klaus shrugs. "It's not like you invited me."

Which she wonders about. They're imposing on each other because they're the only people they know in Machu Picchu. And it strikes her that she thinks: " _people_ ". Are they really that? It seems that they never learned how to "people".

She grabs a bag of marshmallows and pops it open. "So, how many of her destinations do you have left?"

Camille floats in blue ether between them.

Klaus flinches. "Enough."

And something clicks in her head, because this kind of grief-fuelled thinking is second nature to her by now.

"You're gonna do this for a while, aren't you? I mean, long-term."

"What is a "while" anyway?" he asks, flicking a piece of coal back into the fire.

"What about New Orleans – and your family?"

There is no hesitation in his voice when he says, with perfect aplomb, "they'll manage."

She ogles him for a moment in disbelief. And it is within this surprise that she sees him properly, better than before. His face is gaunt in the fire light, his youth not quite so youthful anymore.

"Camille didn't die recently, did she?"

He foresees her line of inquiry and it displeases him. "See you in the morning, witch. If and when."

He leaves, carrying away a question. _What happened to you?_

* * *

They stand in front of the temple of Pachamama where an improvised service is being performed by new age worshippers. They're part indigenous locals, part extravagant foreigners. One of the tourist guides claps his hands in time with the music.

Bonnie and Klaus are standing a little out of the way, watching the worshippers throw vats of hot paint on the ground. The colors are vivid, aggressive. They meld into each other and make a thick, gooey soup which releases bubbles of steam into the air. It reminds her of cutting the belly of an animal. She shudders.

Tourists are encouraged to dip their toes, if they dare. Their feet look like rainbows.

Bonnie pictures lying face-down in the hot paint, letting the acid eat at her skin.

Klaus stands rigidly with arms clasped behind his back, like a connoisseur who is appalled by what he's witnessing. "Such a waste of color."

"It's a ritual," she argues.

"Waste _is_ a ritual. Come on. Let's go inside the temple."

Bonnie raises her eyebrows. "It's closed off to visitors."

"Still a stickler for rules, eh?" he taunts with a trace of rusty humor.

Inside, everything is crumbling, everything is hot and sultry, like being inside an ocean of sweat and tears. The granite is unrelenting; it brushes against her teeth, she feels its consistency on her tongue.

The temple has lost shape and meaning but there is a real hazard of getting injured. They have to tread carefully between the ruins.

Accidents happen. She grazes her knees when she tries to climb over a boulder to reach the hanging terrace.

"Shit."

Red bubbles, like steam, pop on the surface of her skin.

Bonnie sits down on the boulder, clasping her knee. "Shit," she repeats because, usually it's _good_ that it hurts. But this is one of those times where it's not so good. She doesn't want to be here with Klaus, she doesn't want to be in this temple. She doesn't want to be alone either, and she doesn't want to mourn anymore, but she keeps mourning anyway.

She stifles a sob deep in her throat. Why didn't they part ways already? He is so unnecessary to her.

Klaus pauses in front of her. His face is neither sympathetic nor cruel, but in this moment she wishes he would look away.

She tells him, actually. "Please don't look at me."

She'd rather not cry in front of him. Not because she's embarrassed by the flood under her eyelids, but because she doesn't want to share her world of grief with him.

While she's hiding her face, he bends down until he is level with her legs.

His hands, which are cool and dry, reach out to find the soft joints under her knees. He pulls them forward until her legs are stretched out before him.

He lowers his head and cups his lips around her bloody knee.

He drinks the blood without vampiric lust. But he drinks it all the same.

He takes each knee in his mouth and licks at her weeping skin. Bonnie watches him, wide-eyed, breathless.

There is, in this stifling temple, a haze of intimacy which jumps over wheels of history. It doesn't matter who they are, what they are doing. It never did.

He cleans her of blood and then walks away, his fingers lingering only briefly on her ankles.

* * *

She joins him in the evening at his hotel because they have a well-stocked restaurant and she hasn't eaten a warm meal in a week.

Klaus orders her a rich dish of buttered turnips and corned beef. He settles with a glass of wine.

She eats like a little she-wolf, starved from within. He is content to watch her.

They don't talk about his mouth on her knees, and it suits them both fine.

It was a freakness of the temple.

There's a football match on TV and they're the only diners not watching it.

Bonnie sets down her knife. "What happened after Camille died?"

Klaus stares at the knife she has abandoned and she wonders if the blunt edge tempts him.

"Nothing, really. Nothing worth mentioning."

"How many years?"

"Five," he rasps.

"And…where were you during those years?"

Klaus picks up her knife idly and taps it against his finger. "Removed from current events, let's say."

"By whom?"

He runs his finger over the blade. "An offspring of mine. I disappointed him."

Bonnie blinks. "That's…unexpected."

Klaus looks up. "Which part? Surely not the disappointment."

"The regret. _Your_ regret," she clarifies, taking back her knife from his hand.

"What, you think I've never had regrets before? I regret not killing you when I had the chance," he says it casually, almost like a joke and she _could_ take it as such, or she could take him _seriously_ , and then it would be an acknowledgement that she, like him, can't seem to die.

"I was so young back then," she muses. "I was so sure I could defeat you on my own. It mattered so much to me."

He issues an opaque laugh. "It took you roughly ten years to gain wisdom. It took me, oh, a millennium."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asks.

"It should, if you've still got a grip on mathematics."

And she laughs too, opaquely.

* * *

She climbs up to his room which is modest for his usual tastes (there are no gilt-frame mirrors, no oriental vases, no polished marble) but vastly more comfortable than a tent. The bed makes her mouth water. Not to mention the other amenities.

"Oh, God, I miss a shower that's not communal," she says with a hankering, eyeing his private bathroom.

Klaus opens his palms. "Be my guest."

Bonnie hesitates. "It feels weird to…"

"Bathe? On the contrary, even the barbarians did it."

He settles on the balcony with a newspaper.

Bonnie warns him about the mosquitoes outside but then she remembers, _they wouldn't bite him. They'd know he's dead._

She steps into the bathroom with a giddy feeling that she's doing something forbidden. Climbing old ruins is less exciting than taking a luxurious shower in a hotel room where Klaus is sitting on the balcony.

And she's sloshing the water in her mouth and laughing mid-stream as the torrent falls violently on her face.

She and Klaus Mikaelson are _getting along_! All right, they're not really. But they're _acting_ like it!

The water runs down her back, warming her bones.

Life is such a patient teacher, eventually it will pull out all your teeth. All your preconceptions and carefully-laid plans and battlefields will disappear and instead you'll only have a handful of teeth. And you won't even recognize them.

"What's the matter?" Klaus asks gruffly and she almost jumps out of her skin because he's at the bathroom door.

"Nothing!"

"I thought I heard screaming."

"No, I was just laughing," she assures him with a replica of just such a laugh.

She thinks she hears a frustrated sigh, but it could just be the gush of water.

"I believe I _can_ tell the difference. You were screaming," he insists dryly.

Bonnie touches the base of her throat. She swallows the drops of water and licks her lips. "Do you – do you want to come in?"

"What _for_?" he asks like a parent asking the child to explain their logic. Except, he drags out the "for" until the children disappear.

"I don't mind," she says quickly, because there is no shower curtain and if he opens the door he will see everything.

She remembers how Enzo would welcome her out of the shower with a soft towel and clasp her in his arms like she was precious.

Klaus pushes open the door. His shirt is buttoned halfway, his arms are empty. He holds no towel for her, and he doesn't regard her as precious.

But his eyes dwell on the slopes of her changed body, rearrange the peaks and valleys, relish the cliffs. He watches her for several minutes from the open door as water runs down her body.

Bonnie has her back to him, pretending to take things in stride.

She hears something plop on the floor. Then the rumbling of a belt. His linen shirt and trousers have been discarded. He does short work of his garments as he steps almost mechanically into the shower with her.

Bonnie presses her trembling face into the cool tiles, suddenly convinced she's made a terrible mistake, that this is not like in the movies, and that she's not up for any of it.

But he stops a few inches from her body and places a dry hand on the arch of her shoulder blade.

"I suppose it will be easier if you don't look at me."

She is flooded with small relief. Yes, if she stares at the wall it will be so much easier.

He presses her further into the tiles, which are sticky like beer, and parts her legs.

He runs warm fingers between her thighs, but only for a moment, as he prepares his entrance.

It's miraculous how he knows she doesn't want flimsy foreplay or tender caresses. She is slick enough for him, though it still hurts a little when he enters her swiftly, without preamble.

Hurt is good.

Water still runs like rain between them.

He drives into her lackadaisically, at first, letting her get adjusted to his length.

Bonnie breathes hard through her nostrils, inhaling the wall, melting into it while the other half of her body is his. His hands are gripping her hips, keeping her still while he thrusts deep and long.

Bonnie gasps each time, though she swallows the sound in her throat.

Klaus' groans are also muted, though present. They are both hiding from each other, even as he's inside her. She can feel his heated breath on her spine.

He picks up the pace and uses the hybrid's prowess to drive them both, artificially, close to the edge, thrusting faster and faster as the water beats down on them mercilessly – and then he pulls back, slows down by degrees, almost lazily, stealing desperate whimpers from her frame.

But neither is really interested in the other's pleasure or even pleasure itself.

They are interested in the chase, the infernal chase through each other's bodies. _If I enter you, maybe I will be someone else._

He slams his hips against her ass in a careless, vulgar, delicious, _terrible_ storm of dead passion.

Bonnie bites down on her fist. She can't think this is Enzo fucking her, she really can't. Does he think she is Camille?

" _Aah_." He pulls out of her in time and spills his seed down the side of her thigh, which the shower cleans away.

She comes at the thought of their dead lovers watching them.

They pant together in the shower, his dick going soft against her thigh, her eyes closed against the guilt. He touches her shoulder again, not quite a caress, but an allowance.

 _It's just sex._

He steps out of the shower and picks up his clothes and returns quietly to the balcony with his newspaper.

* * *

She sleeps in his bed that night because he insists that she should enjoy the relatively clean sheets and the eiderdown pillows, while he roams the minibar downstairs.

She feels odd, lying down where his body has been resting, where his body has been tormenting. But she falls asleep quickly.

He, on the other hand, plies himself with alcohol all night, standing on the mosquito-ridden terrace, the only ghost the insects won't touch.

Camille is sitting opposite from him, smiling like a darling, her beaming face brighter than the moon. She often sits with him like this, but she doesn't speak anymore, no matter how hard he compels her. He's learned to accept her unreachable presence.

She touches his hand, but it only feels like a ticklish tug, and she nudges her head forward, telling him to go back inside.

Klaus shakes his head. "Come here. Let me hold you."

He knows it's pointless, but he likes to sound the words to her, to make believe that it can happen.

She shakes her head and smiles, smiles, _smiles_. Until the corners of her mouth tremble. Her fingers draw letters on the sticky table.

I, a symbol of a heart, U.

The table clatters rudely as he pushes out of the chair.

* * *

She wakes in the middle of the night to the sound of cicadas and gnats buzzing against the panes. He's still sitting on the balcony, legs propped up against the railing.

Bonnie sits up in bed.

"You should lie down," she calls out to him.

"I prefer verticality," he answers hoarsely, his voice webbed by uninterrupted quiet. He sounds as if another word might do him in. He needs verticality, and silence.

"All the same…" she trails off, "you should lie down."

 _With you?_ is the question he asks in that webbed silence.

She sets her head back on the pillow, but after what feels like hours, he creeps back into the room.

He rather insolently expects her to be awake, which happens to be so.

Klaus snatches the comforter from her body, bunches it up and throws it in a corner.

Bonnie's hands move to the hem of her T-shirt to remove it, but he shakes his head.

"You can keep it on."

She lies back down and lets him remove her shorts and panties as he positions himself between her legs. He wants nothing to do with her other half, it seems. She would feel insulted and unwanted, but she feels the same about his half too. They are deviants who don't care for each other's face. He slips inside of her with the same lack of decorum as before and she does him the favor of not trying to grip his back and pull him towards her. He, too, tries to hold on to the sheets and not her body. Bonnie stares at the ceiling, breathing regularly, Klaus stares at the colorful Hard Rock Café logo on her T-Shirt.

She must've gotten that in Paris with Lorenzo.

The reminder stirs him on, as does Camille's table-drawn heart. These little keepsakes are torture, but they also make life worth living.

Horizontal, however, is different from vertical. It is _different_.

He can't help but touch her body more often when they are tethered like this, flattened against the bed. Her knees collide with the side of his ribs, his palm accidentally skims the side of her waist. Her hands, while clutching the sheets, brush against his own fingers.

"Raise your arms up against the bedstead," he orders her swiftly.

Bonnie obliges, but this unfortunately has the undesired effect of raising the T-shirt a few inches, until he can see her soft belly.

A shadow falls across his face.

She understands his chagrin. She must not be rendered loving flesh. He must be a statue. The both of them must only perform the wasteful rites of sex and go on grieving. And she'd like to oblige in this too, but she doesn't know how. She's never done this before, she's never had sex without feelings. It's not that it's so terribly hard, but there is an art to expediency, there is an art to using someone. And the trouble is, they're not quite strangers.

"Place them in your mouth," he says instead, darkly.

"What?"

"Your hands."

Bonnie trembles, but she slowly plunges her fingers in her mouth and holds them there, biting down gently on her joints.

This seems to solve their problems.

He goes on fucking her with halting moves, avoiding her closeness, diving into it.

Bonnie gets to know the taste of her own skin.

The only real hick-up is at the end, when her saliva-slathered hands accidentally collide with his chin as he's rising from her body.

Their eyes reflect the same shock, but not a trace of disgust. Not when their fluids are commingled between her thighs.

* * *

"Did you come?" he asks her domestically, clinically, and she feels little needles prickling her skin.

She shrugs. "Sort of."

"So you didn't."

"I was close."

"Do you want me to…" he trails off.

"With your finger?" she asks, feeling squeamish.

"If that's what you like."

"No… I guess, I just want to lie down."

So this is what they do, they lie down next to each other in the bed, with space enough for Jesus, as folks in her old town might say.

She's still naked from the waist down. The cicadas are still buzzing against the panes.

"I could bite you," Klaus proposes neutrally, absently.

"What?"

"If you know how to do it, and I _do_ , it acts as a stimulant," he clarifies, stretching a hand behind his head.

Bonnie laughs petulantly. "An orgasm from your fangs? No thanks."

"Suit yourself."

"…does it hurt? Because I _have_ been bitten by vampires and it's no merry-go-round."

Klaus frowns. "Well, yes, those blokes wanted to harm you, I imagine. Intent is everything, love."

 _Love_. He hasn't said that in a while.

"The vampire knows what to release into the mortal body to make it suffer or delight. _Both_ , if you're a special case. It's really quite simple. Lorenzo must have taught you."

"Uh…no, he didn't like or _want_ to bite me."

Klaus glances at her through the fog of their own recent activity. "What is not to like?"

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "He was afraid of hurting me."

"Nonsense. There is a technique to it, we're not all stabbing in the dark. Pun intended."

She smiles a fuzzy, nostalgic smile. "Enzo just liked to make love."

Klaus scowls. " _Don't_ call it that, will you? It unsettles the copious amounts of alcohol I just ingested."

Bonnie runs a hand over her bare stomach. "Did Camille like it when you bit her?"

Something turns stony between them.

"Let's pretend we tolerate each other and trust that when we wake up, neither of us will have killed the other one, all right?" he asks, quarrelsome but gentle.

Bonnie acquiesces.

* * *

 _I was lying on the grass on Sunday morning of last week_ _  
_ _Indulging in my self-defeat_

At first the lyrics don't impose upon their restless sleep and they can almost ignore the peppy music, but once the chorus comes in, it's a fool's errant to go on pretending to be unconscious.

 _I know it's up for me_ _  
_ _If you steal my sunshine_ _  
_ _Making sure I'm not in too deep_ _  
_ _If you steal my sunshine_

It's the kind of popular jam you can't help humming to. Your brain is wired to sing along.

Klaus swats an angry fist at whatever technological contraption is emitting the contagious sounds. He aims for the nightstand. But there's nothing there.

"Mmm…who is playing that?" Bonnie asks with a drag to her voice.

Klaus pinches the bridge of his nose. "My future hangover cocktail."

Bonnie clambers out of the bed without any underwear on, and walks butt-naked to the window, her Hard Rock Café T-Shirt riding up her waist. She wants to find the source of the song.

 _I know it's done for me_ _  
_ _If you steal my sunshine_ _  
_ _Not something hard to see_ _  
_ _If you steal my sunshine_ _  
_ _Keeping dumb and built to beat_ _  
_ _If you steal my sunshine_ _…._

The mystery's resolution is underwhelming. Their neighbors from the adjacent room are sitting on their balcony and playing the song on their iPhones.

They're young-ish, although Bonnie can't put a specific age to their frame, because they're the kind of youth who grow up too fast and become cynical at an alarming rate. They're sharing a cigarette that looks suspiciously like a blunt and they are wearing their complimentary hotel bathrobes. The two men huddle close, laughing at some inane thing, shaking their heads to the song.

Beyond them, the Inca Empire lies in stagnant ruins, spread out like scattered Lego pieces against a chrome sky. Everything is still here, alive and normal.

She turns her head sideways and is startled by his proximity. Klaus has dragged himself out of bed and has joined her at the window. He is barely a hair's breadth away. _  
_

His body stands vertical behind hers as he watches the careless, indifferent youth.

She feels the air between them turn from stone to wax to dusty light. And she feels tempted to lean back into his chest, not because he is a comforting presence, but because there is a dizziness in her body – probably from the early morning heat – and she can't be on her own two legs right now.

His arms land on her elbows, steadying her, thumbs grazing skin.

"I think I may have sunburn," she says softly, leaning into the warmth that cocoons his body, but not directly on his chest.

"Did you take any medication?" he asks matter-of-factly.

"I, uh, used some magic on myself."

Klaus pinches the skin under her arms.

"Ouch," she complains.

"Magic doesn't cover sunshine."

 _(I know it's done for me_ _  
_

 _If you steal my sunshine_

 _sunshine_

 _sunshine_

 _.unshine_

 _..nshine_

 _...shine_

 _...hine_

 _...ine_

 _...ne_

 _...e)_

"There's a drugstore in town. The modern one, I mean," he specifies.

Bonnie heaves a sigh. "I guess we could go."

" _We_?" he scoffs. "I'm going hiking. You can tend to your own ailments."

She feels a sharp tug in the back of her scalp. It's weird how many migraines you get as an adult. She can't remember a time when her brain was on fire as a child.

She knocks into him when she turns around.

"Considering I still have a bit of your dry cum on the inside of my thigh, I think you'll give me a ride to town."

Klaus is momentarily startled by her blunt honesty. He sees the words falling from her lips and he feels a strange stirring below his abdomen at the thought of the vulgar lexicon she keeps buried under her tongue.

His mouth purses mulishly to conceal any allowance. "A _ride_?"

"I don't feel like dealing with normal speed today."

"You want me to zip-line you to the pharmacy?" he asks, slightly incredulous.

"Unless you want me to go on about…" she points ambiguously to her thighs.

"Intercourse with you is not very simple, is it?"

The song is changed abruptly mid-argument and they are graced with the first chords of an auto-tuned version of George Michael's _Freedom '90_.

The culprits have moved from the balcony but have left their devices on the straw-backed table.

Klaus rubs the back of his head. "Should I speed you into town with your bottom out for public display or will you put on some clothes?"

Bonnie presses an accusing finger into his chest. " _You_ were the one who removed my underwear."

He shrugs carelessly. "They're somewhere around here."

Bonnie thinks how, under different circumstances, this could pose as charming banter between two people whose physical interactions are affectionate or in any case, deliberately fond. It's jarring to know they used each other for sex but can't bring themselves to act like it.

She wants to be cooler somehow, more detached from their local tragedies. She wants to open her mouth and say that after she gets her medicine he can drop her off at the tent camp and they can finally put these past three days behind them, but instead.

Instead, she pushes past him and runs to the bed.

She jumps on the bed like the warrior she is.

 _All we have to do now  
Is take these lies and make them true somehow  
All we have to see  
Is that I don't belong to you  
And you don't belong to me  
Freedom  
Freedom  
Freedom_

She jumps on the bed to the beat of the song, taking a pillow in her arms and squeezing it tight before flinging it away.

Klaus watches her with rapt attention. He's either too shocked or too horrified to intervene.

There are some moments of irregularity in life that cannot be translated into a mutable, flexible expression.

He simply _stares_.

Bonnie laughs manically, spinning on the uneven mattress.

"Why in God's name are you laughing?" he asks, as if it's the laughter that stands out more than the rest.

"I don't know!" Bonnie screams over the song and her own athletic jump-kicks. "I think it's funny!"

" _What_?"

"Everything! He's never coming back! And she's never coming back either!" she yells, pointing at him, at the girl in the ether lying dead in his memory. "But we're here! _We_. _Are_. _Here_. Hahahahaa…"

Klaus grabs the second pillow from her arms and means to pull her down, but she wrestles with him until he can feel an inkling of magic.

He grabs onto her ankle and yanks hard, and she glides down on the sheets like a sleigh on hard-packed snow. He's on top of her, trying to subdue her, while she flails happily under him, giggling. This time their bodies are inevitably meshed. They touch. More than flesh on flesh, it is fragments on fragments.

They fight and wrestle among the bedclothes, rolling against each other, Bonnie still laughing, Klaus panting hard, trying _not_ to laugh, both of them feeling dejected and uplifted at the same time.

There is no sex, no feelings, just two wrestling bodies in the middle of a song, in the middle of laughter.

 _You've gotta give for what you take  
Freedom  
Freedom  
Freedom  
You've gotta give for what you take_

 _._

* * *

Bonnie holds the map over her head in place of a shield. She hasn't bothered looking over it for the past half hour. She doesn't care if she finds her way out of the maze of ruins. Their tour guide devised a kind of competition; whoever reaches the center gets a prize. Klaus meanders behind her, studying the bygone masonry.

"I can't wait to get out of this place," she mumbles at length. She's taken her sun allergy medicine but she still feels like her head is about to split open. The trip to the pharmacy, though a little hectic, was fruitful. She got herself a diaphragm, which should hold her out until she gets back on the pill. It didn't use to be necessary with Enzo. But Klaus can have children. ( _Will he ever go back to that girl, his daughter? Was it a daughter? She can't recall_ ). Now yes, ideally, this is a one-or-two time thing. But just in case.

She uncorks her water and takes a gulp.

Bonnie knows that this is a momentary reprieve; the suspicious calm that reigns over her consciousness will give away to panic and guilt and shame. And she will welcome these feelings and choose to blame Machu Picchu and the weather, and running into old faces.

Klaus stands next to her now with an odd glint in his eye.

"Would you like to see the actual Lost City of Gold?"

" _What_?"

"You know, _El Dorado_."

"It doesn't really exist…does it?"

Klaus smiles wistfully. "Oh, the rumors are true, it's here all right. It's just not readily available to people with a pulse."

Bonnie chokes back the water. "What – are you _serious_?"

"As a heart attack. I can escort you into the heart of it, if you wish to see it. But it _is_ rather underwhelming. Excessive gilding is never a good thing."

"I…you can actually take me there?"

"Of course. I haven't lived so long without knowing a forbidden secret or two."

Her blood pounds in her ears. Her migraine is only getting worse, but his offer is tantalizing, exciting even. Hasn't this always been the point of creatures like him? To open windows into another universe? To unlock secrets?

She opens her mouth to say " _yes, show me_ ", but she stares at his face and she dwells on the slant of his mouth, the broad, flaring nostrils, the short blue veins around his eyes which indicate he's recently fed _and he's totally fucking with her_.

Bonnie groans and pushes past him angrily.

"Bastard."

"I can't believe you fell for that," Klaus scoffs behind her, chuckling gleefully, but also mourning the fact that he really _can't_ open any windows into another universe. Immortality is a well-crafted lie and the best he can do is make fun. It cannot sustain them, it cannot soothe them, but… pushing on despite discomfort is a reward in its own way.

It is the only way.

* * *

 _TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: what up, fellow grief-lovers? up for a second chapter of weirdness? i sure am! I was pretty bawled over by the positive responses to the first installment, like yall like the same shit i like! that's so comforting and reassuring! anyway, this one comes with a Tolkien disclaimer. There are things in this chapter about New Zealand and LoTR that are very biased and y'know, fictional. I really like LoTR so Klaus' "meh" attitude about it isn't my attitude, lol, just to make it clear. Also, once again, don't base your holidays on my pretty superficial depictions of places. i am no expert, sadly. _

_That being said, there miiiight be a third installment to this shindig? maybe? possibly? hopefully? we'll see, if my schedule permits it and if you want to see more bizarro adventures._

 _For now, enjoy this mess!_

 _p.s. Sarah and Jared are not supposed to be a Labyrinth reference, because that couple is glorious but...well, I like irony._

 _p.p.s. pleeeease listen to Beck's Blackbird Chain on repeat while reading this chapter. thx!_

* * *

 _I'll never never never never never never refuse you_

 _I'll never never never never never never refuse you,_

 _My blackbird chain, my blackbird chain._

* * *

ii.

"…it's been one hell of a year, but I feel that everything we've been through has made me stronger, kinder, better. I never liked me before I met you, but _you_ made me like me."

The girl at the other end of the table is holding her hand to her mouth, unable to stop the trickle of tears running down her tanned cheeks. She's already nodding yes to an unsaid question, but it hardly matters, since the boy opposite from her is holding an open velvet case.

"I never want to let go of that feeling, Sarah. Do you?"

She laughs, shaking and nodding her head at the same time, bubbles of love coming out of her mouth. She is what one would call a blubbering mess.

Bonnie and Klaus are sitting at a nearby table in close range, but it's not like they have to make an effort to eavesdrop. The couple doesn't shy away from loud declarations. The whole terrace is surreptitiously watching them.

"No, I don't, _baby_ ," Sarah mouths like a dying animal. "No, I don't."

There's a general " _awww_ " around them as even the Wellington traffic slows down to give them this moment.

Bonnie stares at the white tablecloth. "I can't believe it."

Klaus tips back his glass of wine. "I can. Even swine are sometimes moved by sentiment."

"But _those_ assholes?" she grumbles, drumming her fingers against the table. "I mean, his _beloved_ Sarah was frenching the barkeeper two nights ago."

Klaus leers at her. "Oh, I believe they did more than that." He imitates the enthusiastic pumping of a shaft with his hand.

" _Eww_ ," Bonnie wrinkles her nose. "And they had the nerve to complain about _us_."

For that was their grievance with Jared and Sarah. They were all staying at the same hotel with a view to the quay, and it so happened that they also shared a corridor. The two soon-to-be-weds had issued complaints about the noise coming from room 312, even going so far as to throw nasty glares whenever they saw Bonnie and Klaus at the breakfast buffet.

"It all makes sense now," he remarks, watching Sarah drop with a dramatic spin into Jared's arms. The terrace bursts into polite applause.

"How come?"

"Matrimony is a reminder of the many things you _won't_ be able to do for the rest of your life," Klaus clarifies.

Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "You're saying they complained because they secretly envy us."

He smiles into his glass. "Absolutely."

"What a joke," she snorts, thinking how _ludicrous_ it would be for any lovers to covet the sad farce she and Klaus entertain.

Because the "noise" complaint did not arise from heady, rough, all-consuming sex. Well, there _was_ sex involved, but it was mostly quiet and contained and just a _thing_ their bodies did occasionally.

No, the noise came from kickboxing.

* * *

Klaus holds both palms open for her benefit. He has to crouch a little so that she can hit them with her tiny fists.

"You are ungodly short," he mutters, feeling an ache at the foot of his spine. No one tells you when you turn immortal that, while your youth remains intact, your bones and muscles carry the extra years and deposit the pathologies of age. Yes, even he, Klaus Mikaelson, experienced rheumatism.

"Or maybe _you_ are stupid tall," she retorts, bouncing on the soles of her feet impatiently. This is supposed to be her fighting stance, but it is woefully underwhelming. She hardly looks threatening in her tank top and shorts.

"I am actually quite average."

"Words I never thought I'd hear _you_ say," she quips and aims an impassioned fist at his palm. There's a ringing sound against his skin, notifying him she's put a little magic behind it, but it does not move him. His palm barely inches to the left.

She tries again, but this time her sweaty fist slips and glides down his arm awkwardly.

Bonnie huffs and wipes her forehead. "Stand still."

"I am."

"No, you're swaying a little."

" _Why_ would I be swaying?" he demands.

"How should _I_ know?"

"It's not the end of the world if you missed," he remarks.

"I didn't," she mutters, hitting both of his palms repeatedly, "miss."

Her fists shoot tendrils of magic around his fingers, coaxing something out of him, maybe anger or resentment or some kind of competitive spirit. He's not sure what it is. Certainly not the blind rage he usually feels in a fight. This is a pretend-fight, anyway. It can't release the foul energy in his gut, but it whiles away the time, and at least they both feel very present when it's happening. You can't exactly contemplate the dead when you're trying to kick your partner in the shins.

"Okay, here comes my foot," she warns him, as she raises her legs to hit his palm.

* * *

Her fingers idly trace the dog-eared paperbacks which form a pyramid in the middle of the street. She suppresses a yawn. Bonnie didn't think it possible to find _more_ Tolkien paraphernalia than in the last shop they wandered into, but Wellington is a constant surprise. The closer you get to the filming locations, the more merchandize you are bombarded with. Some of the "LoTR travel-logs" take it upon them to inform you that you can't _possibly_ go hiking up Mount Victoria unless you're equipped with a trusty hobbit robe, a nifty wizard's staff and an elvish sword for killing orcs. She's passed enough tourists on the street who adhered to this exact wardrobe to know it's no joke.

"Cami really wanted to do all of this?" she asks over her shoulder.

Klaus is flipping through some "Middle Earth" brochures with a dour expression on his face. "It was her _dream_ to visit the film locations. She was - her words, not mine - a real Tolkien aficionado."

Bonnie frowns. "And I'm guessing you're not?"

The hybrid shrugs noncommittally. "I find quests quite boring. Especially if they are in the service of good."

Bonnie raises an eyebrow. "Isn't _this_ a kind of quest you're doing for Camille?"

Klaus runs his thumb over an _Eye of Sauron_ pack of cards he's picked up. "Not in the slightest. I don't expect anything – good or bad – to come out of it."

Bonnie can't argue with that line of thinking and she doesn't feel offended. She did agree to join him on his next destination. She knew he'd be grumpy. And heaven knows, she's hardly any better.

"I think I'm going to get a hobbit robe, just in case," she says glibly, not waiting to catch his reaction.

* * *

They are being driven to the airport in the same taxi. Klaus is commenting how the car's floor is dangerously close to the ground and how the exhaust pipe is releasing too many fumes, but the driver hardly understands a word. He keeps nodding cheerfully, as if the hybrid were telling him a funny joke. Bonnie is looking out the window, waving goodbye to the green peaks she has scaled with such mad determination, squinting to spot their hotel in the distance. Is it the washed-up yellow or the grainy lapis? It's funny, the way people color their buildings, to set them apart, like flowers in the sun. Will she ever return to Machu Picchu? If she does, she'll be assaulted with regrettable memories of her and Klaus trying to hate-fuck in the oppressive heat of Peru. And that doesn't jive well with her mourning itinerary. Enzo told her she was supposed to live her life at the fullest, not fall into a pit of bad decisions.

 _I'm sorry I screwed up. I'll do better next time._

She looks around to find Klaus is watching her. He has pulled out the minted piece of paper he keeps near his heart.

"Camille wanted to go to New Zealand next. Imagine _that_. I can't stand these interminable flights. Airplane champagne is just pricey horse piss, if you ask me."

Bonnie wrinkles her nose. "No one did."

"In any case, it's hellish."

She chews the inside of her jaw. "You could just make a run for it."

Klaus raises a critical brow. "Across the ocean?"

"You don't have to hold your breath, do you? I'm sure you're a great swimmer," she teases wanly, not in the mood for an argument.

He folds the piece of paper and pockets it carefully. "I'd rather not follow in the footsteps of The Limping Devil, thank you very much."

"Who?"

"Oh, hasn't the nickname stuck? I rather thought it would."

"Who are you talking about -"

"Lord Byron," a voice chimes in suddenly, and they both look at the taxi driver who smiles placidly in the rear mirror.

"How did you…" Klaus begins.

"School teacher," the driver says, pointing at his chest. "Fell on hard times, so I drive now."

Bonnie smiles quietly. "You're such a snob."

Klaus frowns. "How am I –"

"You didn't expect him to know your stupid riddle."

"It wasn't a _riddle_ , and you were hardly less surprised by his knowledge."

"No, I happen to believe in the potential of _all_ people," she replies with a touch of the sanctimonious, but she's enjoying rubbing it in his face.

"Ah, yes, I forgot, you and Rosa Luxemburg dined on the same half-baked notions of social democracy."

"There you go again, trying to wow us with your snooty references," she grumbles, turning back to window-gazing. "But you're really just an insecure smarty pants."

"I am _not_ an insecure smarty -"

"...I really did not mean to cause a fight," the driver speaks up sheepishly, but he's promptly ignored.

"Because slipping Rosa Luxen-whatever into conversation happens every day –" Bonnie retorts, fuming.

" – it's _Luxemburg_ and it _can_ happen, if you know a dearth of human history."

"I spent most of my high school _and_ college years studying hundreds of books on the major arcane arts, memorizing dozens of grimoires written in god-knows what languages, so _excuse_ me if a dearth of human history –"

"Do you want to go to New Zealand with me?" Klaus asks her, catching her completely off-guard.

* * *

So she is here now, trekking once again (as if she hadn't got enough of that in Peru), but this time it's colder and she's considerably less sure about what her purpose is. In Machu Picchu, she knew at least that she was supposed to surpass herself. Now…there are fewer obstacles. She is walking alongside Klaus through the Kaitoke Regional Park and everything is too peaceful, too…bucolic. The Park itself is not that easy to navigate; there are segments of the forests which are mist-ridden and full of grottoes and brooks that render it, at times, impassable, but there's a certain atmosphere in the air, like nothing could ever harm you. Like you could walk forever and never encounter a malevolent spirit in your path. And indeed, this seems to be the purpose, since the Park was the location for Rivendell, the seat of the elves. She's made aware of this by the many road signs and the gaggle of tourist groups they had to join upon entrance.

"Look at these majestic trees," an older woman cries out behind them. "You can hear Sindarin whispers in the leaves."

"…someone hasn't taken their medication today," Klaus mutters, kicking aside a thickening of brambles.

Bonnie snaps a photo or two. The park is beautiful, despite her determination not to enjoy it very much. There is that escapist quality in it, the pastures of Anne of Green Gables, the idyll of Peter Pan; in a flash, you do believe in fairies and nymphs and elves. But then you're reminded _you're_ a witch and you know the unglamorous, tedious aspects of the supernatural that has little room for whimsy.

She dips her fingers into a gurgling stream which strangles the moss-covered stones like a necklace. The rest of the tourists are walking around with open copies of _The Fellowship of the Ring_ , documenting the exact spot where Arwen's horse might have passed.

Klaus throws a small stone in the rapids and watches it travel south. "We should probably have sex here."

Bonnie cranes her neck at him. "Are _you_ off your meds?"

Klaus throws his hands in the air. "Look at this sylvan Arcadia. How can you stand it? It's like a bloody monastery."

"Shh, no swearing," a young teenage boy warns them as he passed by, wielding a map of Middle Earth.

"Case in fucking point," Klaus mutters, highly aggrieved.

Bonnie brushes her grass-stained jeans. "It _is_ weird when you swear."

The hybrid's expression turns mutinous. "Unless you want me to unleash a torrent of profanity, you'll get up and help me find a place to fuck you."

Bonnie giggles under her breath. She can't believe she heard that sentence come out of his mouth. Reality is so much weirder than fantasy, she finds. " _Where_ would we even –"

"I think I saw a camping stop up ahead. Now, come on."

She accepts the hand he offers.

* * *

" _Owwwww_."

Klaus' fingers knead the red skin in an effort to soothe it, but it still hurts like hell.

"Better, love?"

" _No_. Not better. This was the worst idea ever."

She can barely hold up her underwear. It's incredibly humiliating when Klaus has to pull up the plain whites around her hips.

Fucking against a tree turned out to be the most uncomfortable thing in the universe. Her ass is covered in splinters and she's got ants crawling up her vagina, to say the least. Klaus is still rubbing her buttocks as if that could somehow set it right.

"I could give you a bit of blood –" he offers hesitantly.

"No thanks. Let's just – God – let's just find a stream, I want to try and wash it off."

It wasn't going _that_ bad until she had to actually pull down her jeans. When her bare skin hit the rough bark, it was like being mauled to death. Klaus was in the middle of stroking her nipple with his tongue, when the hellish abrasion started.

"Can you walk?" he asks her rather sheepishly.

She can, but she'd rather make him feel extra-guilty, so she accepts his offer to carry her. Piggy-back style, so her ass can be relieved.

Bonnie winds her arms around his neck and settles her chin in the crook of his shoulders. Her thighs grip his waist and her breasts press against his solid back.

"You know, this is more like sex than actual sex," she remarks as he hooks his hands around her ankles.

"Hmph," is all he replies, as he carries her on his back through the park.

It's quite a lovely walk, from her vantage point.

* * *

She's got her head buried in the pillow to stifle the screams - and _okay_ , this may have been _another_ source of lamentation for Sarah and Jared from across the hall. But can she help it when she's being tortured to death?

Klaus is holding a pair of tweezers in his hand as he tries, clumsily, to extract the splinters from the bruised skin of her butt.

"We could just go to a doctor–" he proposes for the umpteenth time.

"I am _not_ going to explain this to a doctor," she insists stubbornly.

She has drunk a bit of his blood out of despair, and while that _did_ reduce the swelling, it did not remove the splinters.

" _How_ ," she barks, "did you manage to cure vampires from deadly werewolf bites but you can't remove some wood from my ass?"

"If I had known this need would arise I would have ordained the Maker to oblige you," he grumbles, forcing her to stand still, while his palm presses down on her spine.

"I hate trees," she mumbles tearfully.

Klaus applies cold cream to the suffering skin. His fingers rub and caress down the length of her thighs and between her legs.

Bonnie sighs softly. "That's not so bad. It's actually – OUCH! MOTHERF-"

"Aha, got it!" he bellows triumphantly, holding out a splinter between his thumb and forefinger.

"You distracted me. You bastard."

"So you keep saying. Cold cream?"

Bonnie buries her head in the pillow. "Yes, please."

* * *

The massage is not supposed to be erotic, but you could say that about most things in life and they'd prove you wrong. He lets his fingers wander into forbidden territory, even though at this point it's hardly an impropriety. True, this feels more intimate than fucking her from behind. As he sinks each digit between her thighs, he feels small shudders traverse her body. He can't always tell if she likes what he's doing or if she's only coping with the pain of her injured derriere. He can't see her face, as it is safely buried in the pillow. He likes that. He likes knowing she's hidden, and that in the end, this is a physiological dance where identity bears no importance.

He sinks his hand further down and cups her clit. He can feel it thrumming against his palm, and he's scared for a moment that she's alive in his hands. The contact is too much like holding a bird, or a small infant. Like holding his daughter. And at the same time he is hard with lust which makes him feel sick to his stomach. He removes his hand and settles it back on her swollen ass.

He can't do this.

Bonnie arches a little into his touch, but remains quiet, almost understanding.

* * *

When it's his turn to land a blow, it's rather awkward. His strength is enough that he could knock her small palm out of its dainty wrist, so he has to be careful. As such, his knuckles barely graze against her hands.

Bonnie scowls. "Is that the best you got, grandpa?"

"I'm showing restraint."

"Well, don't. This is kickboxing. Not knitting."

He raises an eyebrow. "...knitting?"

"I - I couldn't think of anything else, now come on!"

"I'd break your bones."

Bonnie scoffs. "I doubt it. Go on, try me. How does that song go?"

Klaus grinds his teeth. Now he can hear that awful tune in his head. _Hit me with your best shot._

"Very well."

He thinks she will probably parry him with magic, which might not be enough to hold him back…but he's curious where their little matches might eventually lead. Will they draw blood?

Bonnie squats lower, moving her hips in time with her breath as she holds her palms open for him.

Klaus takes an elegant step back, drawing his right foot behind his left, letting his body pause like an arrow before release. And then he swings forward without so much as a breath, his fist making a whoosh in the air and –

Bonnie slips nimbly to the side, out of his way.

The force of the momentum carries him forward, and he stumbles, as his fist connects painfully with the wall.

Her laughter behind him is insouciant, but not altogether malicious. She cradles her stomach with her hands, her pearly white teeth shining in the cool evening.

Klaus pretends to be angry. He _should_ feel a little bit sour. His jaw locks, but it's a mechanical reaction. Instead, he dashes forward in a surge of inhuman speed and bowls her over, grabbing her by the waist and throwing her on the bed.

Bonnie lands on the mattress with a small whoop and a look of surprise, but her laugh still sounds in his ears, like bells in a churchyard far away.

He wants the moment to last, he wants its absurdity to be prolonged for many more timeless evenings, but he also wants it to end, so he can come out of it unscathed.

He flips her over and quickly pulls down her shorts. Her buttocks are still red, still swollen from the tree bark, and he bites into her flesh without his fangs. It's enough to elicit a moan of pain from her.

"Owww, you little shit."

He can't even remember how long it's been since he bit someone without drawing and drinking blood. It must have been before he was turned. Is it even _biting_? How can it be? You just sink your human teeth into pillow skin, and like a sponge, the skin pushes back and reforms itself.

It still hurts her like a bitch, though.

"You little shit," she repeats, slapping away his head from her butt.

"Pot calling kettle," he murmurs, planting a cold, but human kiss on her ass before rolling off her.

* * *

"Look, I'm Lady Galadriel," she boasts, turning around in a circle, her white skirts flowing in her wake.

The dress is more gray than white, and the robe which is clasped at her shoulders looks suspiciously like a mackintosh, but a few of her locks have been weaved into woodland plaits while the rest of her hair has been let down her back, and the ensemble is not completely unappealing.

She _is_ lovely, which is an objective quality he's always been aware of. Even as he tried to snuff her life in her teenage years, his eyes lingered occasionally, wondering what it would be like to have her.

You'd have to be half-blind, anyway, not to notice her beauty.

But he's lived long enough to get really sick of it. It's like eating cake your entire life. One more sweet slice won't make a difference. This isn't to say he's ever completely immune to her shapely figure and bright eyes, but they can't shake him out of his stupor. Beauty is beautiful, and that's about it.

All his recent attachments to women have been due to their inability to be beautiful for very long. Caroline - a darling, but short stint - could never get that hungry look out of her eye. She was a proud lioness who resented her cage and turned grotesque when threatened. He liked to watch the menagerie behind her eyelids.

And Camille – Here he stops, breathes. Camille was always too emphatic, her face too expressive, her joy rendering her ugly and interesting.

But Bonnie's beauty never breaks; it is a relentless beauty. Even in her worst moments, and he's seen quite a few of those, she is mythically beautiful.

He can't describe it without sounding like a fetishist, and it's not even her body _per se_ that accomplishes this feat; but in all his time with her, he has never seen Bonnie Bennett anything but graceful. Whether she's growling or crying or sweating or climbing, she does not break the aura.

Even now – she's turning a cheap wardrobe into a delicate ornament.

It is impressive, her grace. It must be her good heart which imbues her every action with a certain dignity. She'd firmly deny it. She doesn't see her goodness any more than he sees his evil. But the matter stands, this beauty alienates him. He can't reach her. He is not worthy, and he doesn't want to be.

She glides on the bench next to him.

"You should really grab a costume. You're sticking out like a sore thumb."

"Well, isn't that a change from my usual ability to blend in," he drawls, nursing a tankard of _Miruvor_ \- at least, that's the concoction's name. A sprite "hobbit" barkeeper poured it for him at the beginning of the evening. It tastes like highly concentrated mead, but it suits him fine.

He narrows his eyes all of a sudden. "Are you wearing pointy ears?"

Bonnie flushes a burgundy red. "It's part of the costume."

"So you've embraced the barmy proceedings, then?"

"If you can't beat'em…" she trails off, shrugging self-consciously.

His hand suddenly lifts to her shoulder, and his fingers part a soft plait over her ear. He touches the fake plaster and smiles. "You know, I could show you _real_ elves, if you want me to. There is a secret place –"

"Ha, ha," she deadpans. "I am not falling for that twice."

"It was worth a try," he smirks, recalling her past naivety.

When the complimentary Middle-Earth feast is served, it includes vegan apple cake and lobster thermidor, which Klaus is certain are items not to be found on the elves' or hobbits' usual menus.

When he points this out to Bonnie, she says, with a full mouth, "There were seas in Middle Earth."

"So?"

"So, I assume some of the er...fisher-folk, or whatever, caught lobster occasionally."

"And prepared it according to a French recipe?"

Bonnie wrinkles her nose. "Maybe the French got it from them."

"You do realize this is all a fictional world, don't you?"

" _Really_? And I thought I'd grown these overnight," she drawls, pointing at her elvish ears.

Soon, the tables are cleared up for dancing. Dozens of Gandalfs and Arwens and Frodos lock hands in a reel that goes round the clearing and grows larger with more and more tourists joining in the shindig. The outfits are outlandish, the dance moves are crude and the folksy songs are all recorded on a CD which plays in a surround-system. All in all, this impromptu outdoor festivity in the quiet town of Matamata (the real-life location for the _Shire_ , he reads on the brochure) isn't all _that_ impromptu. Everything has been planned and simulated before the guests even arrived. This whole place is an amusement park for the gullible to come and play make believe.

He walks away from the dancing crowd and surveys the "hobbit holes" that dot the small hills around them. They're only ornamental doors fixed to the ground; the actual sets were removed a long time ago. But one _could_ be fooled, he supposes.

There is a sense of peace and calm as he ambles in the dark.

Bonnie catches up to him soon enough. Her white dress shimmers in the milky moonlight. She's panting like a horse, as she has evidently been dancing.

"This Legolas guy asked for my Facebook, and when I wouldn't give it to him he said I'm not _worth_ his time anyway, can you believe him? I need you to get back out there and punch him for me."

Klaus bends towards a spot of grass before them. "Aren't you adept at kickboxing by now?"

"Yes, but I'm _Lady_ Galadriel. I can't be violent or mean."

"I'm quite sure she would allow you to sock him once or twice."

Bonnie huffs. "You're useless to me. What have you got there?"

"For my lady," he mocks, giving her a small wreath of flowers he's gathered. They're mostly wild flowers, thick and bristly and rough, but beautiful in their own self-sufficient way.

Bonnie curtsies with a smile and accepts the corsage. She sinks her nose in their petals. Wild flowers smell so different from any other type. The rich bouquets of roses and anemones and orchids smell like the heavy pulp of despair. But wild flowers smell like the gnarly old sap of trees, the fragrant air of freshly baked bread. They are supremely optimistic. They never let you cry.

Bonnie plucks out a flower to weave into her hair, her clumsy fingers trying to pry the locks apart.

Klaus steps forward, lowering her wrist. "You have no talent for this, do you?"

He skillfully pins the bloom next to her ear, his knuckles brushing against her cheek.

Bonnie bites her lip. "This feels a little…"

"Much?" he finishes for her.

She nods her head.

Klaus releases a breath. "Forget Paris. New Zealand is the new home of the maudlin."

He looks over her shoulder at the hobbit door fastened to the hill behind them.

"Now _this_ is a great place to fuck."

* * *

This time, _she_ insists he take her from behind because she is not about to risk rubbing her ass against wood again.

He bunches up her elvish dress – "I wonder if Lady Galadriel would've condoned my cock inside you," he whispers naughtily in her ear – but he makes sure not to rip it off because it's a long walk back to the buses that brought them here.

As she's pressing her breasts against the hobbit door and the hybrid slams into her slow and patient, leaving her gutless, Bonnie wonders if Camille would really be proud of Klaus desecrating her favorite fantasy.

Her guilt only lasts momentarily. One of the hands which grip her to him travels south, and the heel of his palm crushes her clit in rapid, fiery motions.

"Uh – uhhh – fuck please – Klaus – _Aaaah_."

He relishes the " _please_ " as he drives into her with the same slow and steady pace, not caring that she's keening against the door. She sobs with pleasure, falling into his back as he sinks his dick deeper into her, and he feels a drunken satisfaction when she tightens around him like a vise.

Klaus groans and drops his head into her plaits as the void surges through his body, paralyzing him.

"Bo-"

But the rest of the name is cut off. He doesn't allow himself to say it.

She doesn't hear it anyway.

They're both lost in the aftermath.

Then again, this isn't making love. No actual feelings are being exchanged, only heady sensations.

So Camille really doesn't have to worry.

The wild flower is still perched behind Bonnie's ear.

* * *

The Galadriel dress has been dropped at the foot of the bed, but they aren't going to get any friskier tonight. They've both got their sensible pajamas on, lying in bed with queasy stomachs from too much _Miruvor_.

It's bound to be a night of quiet contemplation, when:

"Have you ever had anal?"

There is a pause.

"...was the lobster that indigestible?"

She laughs. "No, I just – I'm curious about your _proclivities_. I can say big words too, see."

Klaus glances at her. "Does this question mean you want –"

" _God_ , no. If you touch my butt again you will die," she informs him with a serious look. She hasn't forgotten the splinters or the bite.

"I'm just curious," she continues. "Of course, if it's too private or, I don't know, embarrassing…"

"Very well, Bonnie Bennett, yes, I _have_ had anal," he says in defiance.

"With women?"

"…both genders."

Bonnie blinks. "Wow. That's – that's something."

The quiet settles back between them.

Klaus heaves a sigh. "Go on, then."

"Huh?"

"Go ahead and ask the questions you're _dying_ to ask."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

" _Please_. This is not my first rodeo. I've been alive for longer than this country; you want to know if I've done everything under the sun."

Bonnie turns on her side towards him and bunches the pillow under her head. "I mean, I assume you have done plenty, so I wouldn't even know where to start –"

"I do."

Klaus raises his palm and starts taking inventory with each finger. Bonnie winces as she is regaled with tales of numerous orgies, salacious incest, inter-species escapades, slave-master fantasies, watersports and other highly objectionable fluid exchanges. Now the lobster _is_ sitting poorly in her stomach.

He stops eventually and considers her pale face, her wide eyes.

Klaus chuckles. "Yes, love, you had all of _that_ ," and he gestures to his nether region, "inside you."

Bonnie wrinkles her nose. "Oh God." She hadn't even considered it. All of that disgusting fornication coating her insides... " _Ughh_."

"Just think about it. Through me, you've indirectly had intercourse with a centaur."

Bonnie picks up her pillow and throws it at him. "You are the absolute worst."

He catches it lazily and stalks towards her like a desert cat.

"Yes." With another effortless motion, he's pinned her to the bed. "And now my dirty tongue will be in your innocent mouth."

It's not like he's planned this, but she's so outraged by his past history that he can't help but tease her further.

He lowers his head and captures her lips, prying them open before she can protest.

Bonnie gags on his tongue. "I can taste the centaur, _bleeeh_."

He smiles against her lips and cradles her cheek. He probes her mouth further with his tongue, hoping to repel her. But he's ticklish and she's warm and they both sort of continue kissing, languidly, almost sluggishly, like two old people after dozens of years of knowing their bodies. She doesn't know if this is their first kiss but it doesn't feel like it.

They break up a little, their lips sticking to each other, their breaths in tandem.

"I think I need to throw up," she quips, making repulsed noises against his mouth.

Klaus snickers. "Did I tell you about the practice of sexual regurgitation –"

"Gah! No! Stop!"

They tumble around in the bed like children. They are aimless, they wrestle only to feel their bodies knocking like bowling pins.

At length they grow tired and sleepy and detached. Klaus doesn't snake his arm around her waist to pull her up against his chest. She doesn't cuddle into him with a happy sigh.

They fall asleep separately, joined only by the deep sense in their gut that they are not alone.

* * *

"Oh. Oh my God, I just realized," Bonnie says as Sarah and Jared kiss passionately in front of a dozen strangers.

Klaus cocks his head to the side. "Do share."

" _He_ was the Legolas who asked for my Facebook. You know, at the Shire party?"

The hybrid registers the information slowly. "Which one was that? There have been so many _charming_ outings."

She rolls her eyes impatiently. "When you… you know, against the hobbit door?"

"Oh, that. _Oh_."

He turns to look at Jared better, although he can't see his face, as it is being sucked whole by his fiancée's mouth.

"So, to recapitulate," he drawls, "Sarah gave a hearty blowjob to the barkeeper dressed like Samwise Gamgee and her beau wanted to get cozy with Lady Galadriel."

Bonnie whistles. "They sure are made for each other."

And as if they timed their reactions in advance, they both burst into laughter.

It's the brash, loud kind of laugh that is not decorous or considerate of others. The diners glare daggers at them for spoiling this otherwise romantic moment.

Even Sarah and Jared part lips peevishly and stare at the petite woman and burly man who are making fun of them without a care in the world.

* * *

Bonnie wakes up the next day to find Camille's traveling itinerary on the pillow next to her and a note attached to it, written in ridiculously loopy calligraphy:

 _Gone down to fetch breakfast._

She gingerly picks up the immaculate piece of paper. Her hands feel like they're touching a sacred heirloom. She can almost feel the warmth it carries from being held so close to his body. But there is something cold about it too. As if it's too precious to really exist in the world.

She hesitates for a moment, and then looks down.

The following destination is Thailand. Klaus has written a question mark next to it.

Bonnie is sure the question mark is not really meant for her. But then – he _did_ want her to see it, didn't he?

She feels a fluttering in her stomach, hunger and pain and wonder. A gnawing of emotions. They all have sharp teeth. But there is a sense, even in this wrenching confusion, that she can do this. That it _will_ be okay in the end. That this – while not inevitable – is the journey she's currently undertaking and that she has to let it go on.

She thinks about Jared's proposal to Sarah.

Klaus has not made her stronger or better or – she snorts – _kinder_ , and she can't say she's done any of that for him so far, but to deny the question mark is to deny the days they spent in New Zealand. They mattered. They _matter_.

Bonnie scrambles for a pen in the drawer of her nightstand. When she finds it, she crosses the question mark in half and puts back Camille's travel plans on his pillow.

She waits for breakfast.

* * *

Klaus carries the tray up the stairs, because it's something to do. He doesn't want to wake up next to her, doesn't want to catch her face in the morning light, because the fragility of the moment might induce him to do something stupid and false.

He hopes she'll see the piece of paper and draw her own conclusions without pestering him with further questions. He really doesn't want to ask again.

 _Do you want to go to Thailand with me?_

He wants her to just be ready to go. Ready to pack her things. Ready to leave for the airport. All in companionable silence.

Talking about it would counterfeit their understanding. And their understanding is important to him, it's keeping him afloat.

He sees Sarah and Jared climbing down to the breakfast buffet. They scorch him with reproachful looks.

He smiles. That insipid proposal.

No, he doesn't like himself when he's with Bonnie Bennett, he's never _truly_ liked himself with anyone. But he likes the character he plays when he's with her, the effort he puts into the mask. She does the same for him. It's an amusement park of make believe, it's their own crippled Shire.

He knocks on their door.

"Are you awake?"

* * *

 _TBC (?)_


End file.
